


parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

by philthestone



Series: then she'll be a true love of mine [7]
Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, [tv announcer voice] what does any of that mean?!, superfluous georgian era letters, the dream is to escape death and go live with your chickens on a beach in the carribean, vignette-style fill-in-the-gaps, well you'll just have to READ to FIND OUT!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27095494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: Their apartments are dingy in the way that the corners remain dark and the fire feels like it is all but struggling to bring light to the place, but Claire stands, hair loose and undone and hands dirtied from her day’s work, managing bubbling water and carefully ordered medicine box and the mending by the foot of the bed with a sort of seamless, stubborn grace. Suddenly, he cannot bring himself to move forward, because something about the way she is placed against the lone light source in the room is making it look as thoughsheis from whence the light is coming, rather than the fire.The continuing, in-between adventures of the faerie and her lad.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp & Geillis Duncan, Claire Beauchamp & Lord John Grey, Claire Beauchamp & Murtagh Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser & Brianna Fraser, Jamie Fraser & Jenny Fraser, Jamie Fraser & Lord John Grey
Series: then she'll be a true love of mine [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762789
Comments: 20
Kudos: 83





	parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like the grandpa from princess bride. "true loves kiss! deceiving british officers! family fluff! daring escapes! domestic spousal conversations whilst on the lam!"
> 
> unfortunately, you do have to have some familiarity with the other fics in this series for this one to make sense. that said, we're trying something new with the format here. this is meant to be a serious installment in this universe, but it's good to not take yourself entirely seriously sometimes. 
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me over the course of this series! somehow, it went from something entirely off the cuff to an actual, planned story arc with deliberate installments. only two stories left now; one that will hopefully be the culmination of this entire arc, and one epilogue.
> 
> for now, the title, and subheadings, are from scarborough fair ... and reviews bring my heart so, so much joy

**part i: parsley**

Claire’s brittle hands hang abstractly at her sides. In front of her, a great animal chuffs, its proud face peering down at her imperiously. She only stares back. She has transcended the care it takes to glare; that would mean she has the time to assume a position. She does not. The insides of her bones are trembling with the sudden, violent loss, imprinted in her since the afternoon.

She can still hear her daughter’s crying, frightened and small where Fergus hid them under the chicken coop. 

“I know you know something’s wrong,” she tells him bluntly. 

Beady intelligent eyes, thick-lashed as a horse’s are, gaze down at her. One ear flicks. A great, seal-brown flank quivers. The air between them sits tense and vibrating -- it’s heavy with the promise of what Claire is about to do.

Shift-clad, fae-like, still half-clothed and wild-haired from when earlier she shed her bloodied dress after tending to the British bullet in Mary MacNab’s shoulder that was meant for _her_ , she is willing to play the battered Orpheus once more.

“You are going to help me get him back,” Claire tells her husband’s horse, as they stand together in the midnight chill of Lallybroch’s stables, “because you’re the only bloody beast in this place who’s large enough to carry all three of us. And I can’t abide to leave Brianna behind. And if you _bite_ me, I shall bite you right back.”

A beat passes. 

Donas snorts, muted, with ears flicked backwards in a yielding, sympathetic movement.

Then he tosses his head. 

Through the fierce gleam of her grin, Claire swears it looks like a nod.

**

He has been all but dismissed after an aborted negotiation for control of the prisoners’ behaviour, and the guards meant to take him back to his cell are already outside of the heavy-grate door. John Grey understands the simplicity of earning respect better than most. But he is still awkward and unknowing, not entirely privy to the grander truths of the world, when he stops Jamie half a step out the door and says,

“There’s a woman who will be coming to see to some of the sickness going around. Perhaps that will help ease some tensions.”

“Aye.” 

Christ, but Claire was right.

( _Claire is always right_.)

The damp and the cold and all the blasted things in between are making his leg and hand ache terribly.

Grey stands at his desk, a paper in hand, and looks as though he cannot decide whether he wishes to scowl or inquire. He’s a good lad, for all that he is currently playing jailor, but Jamie’s hands and feet are bound in a way that sits heavy at the back of his throat, and so an effort is required to keep his face impassive. With an abstract patience that is more habit than anything he shifts as well as he is able to wait for the next point. There’s a painting of green-blue ocean hung above Grey’s desk. The fire in the fireplace has the same orange hue of Brianna’s soft curls. His leg aches again, the sort of throb that comes around ghost-like and only after you’ve feckin’ noticed it -- 

“A Mrs. Elizabeth Beauchamp. Protestant minister’s widow, from Oxfordshire.”

It is as though every bone in his body stands to attention. Jamie does not move an inch.

“Aye?” he says again. Half-turned, perhaps John will not see his face. Half-turned, he almost wishes that is the case, so that he might whisper a half-strangled prayer for nothing at all up into the ceiling.

“I would have thought perhaps the name was familiar,” John says coldly. “You did once hold her against her will, after all. Or have you forgotten already?”

He’s terrible at posturing, Jamie thinks. But it’s not _entirely_ his fault that he cannot muster enough non-contradictory evidence to have a better understanding of Jamie’s character.

“I did,” he says, voice carefully flat, the cold metal ridge of his shackles digging into the inside of his wrist. The fireplace on the other side of the room, the one that’s dancing merrily like Bree’s lovely hair, is just a step too far away for Jamie to truly feel it. “May God forgive me for it.”

John says nothing for a long moment. Then, “She was quite insistent that she would come regardless. I told her you were here of course. I suppose the scope of Christian charity knows no bounds.”

He sounds once more as though he is unsure of his own opinion on the matter. Turning fully to face him, Jamie inclines his head, careful to hide his smile in the corner of his mouth.

He says, “She’s a far better soul than you or I, it seems,” and watches not without a small measure of satisfaction as the younger man grapples with the sincerity of his words. 

**

She’s already halfway perched on his shoulders, grappling with a rope attached to the awning turret, peering down at the wall below them.

This is all terribly familiar, if perhaps the blazing fire they’ve left behind them is ... well ... _blazing_. But that was not _her_ fault, entirely. _She_ is not the poor fool who ran shaking in his boots from the faceless specter in the dark, knocking down those torches along the way.

“Ye ken ye were far more’n jest a simple witch, Sassenach,” Jamie is saying now, muffled. “Ye even drugged tha’ puir private. If I hadnae kent it was you I might’ve believed it.”

His face is hidden somewhere between the awkward placement of stocking-clad knee and thigh, Fergus’s borrowed pocket knife held between his teeth. Claire reaches down now to take it from him, intent on affixing their knot correctly.

She does not deign to respond and despite the fact that they are only steps ahead of the prison patrols laying chase he begins to _tease_ \--

“Lord, ye’re heavier than ye used to be --”

“Oh, certainly, and you forget the two children _you_ put in me --” 

\-- but there is a thrill to it, a thrum, running through the fingertips holding their escape rope and making her want to turn and put her hands all over him. Something about how easy it is to throw the easy, cheerful words right back, she thinks -- or maybe just the knowledge that she _has_ him again.

Dimly, Claire hears shouting from behind them, and the marching patter of running footsteps.

She looks down. Her husband’s dear face is more grime than it is skin. This close, she can see again the smudges under his eyes, the gaunt cut of the cheeks she could not touch when she was _Mrs. Beauchamp_. She had slipped Bree’s scribbly stick drawing of Donas (and a lopsided bloom of heather, and the blob-like shape of Miss Mary’s pretty shoes, and an amorphous black smudge of _bees_ , because _their buzzin’s jus’ so pretty, Mama_ ) into the front of Murtagh’s shirt last week while allowed to tend to his pneumonia and she sees it again now, tucked carefully into a knotted corner of Jamie’s collar, clean and protected where none of the rest of him is. 

Something twists in her chest, live and willful, like she is ready to do anything he might ask. 

“ _You there! Stop, now, in the name of the King!”_

She half expected him to be grinning at her, but all he is is solemn, half hidden between her legs. 

“D’ye trust me, Claire?”

“With everything,” she says.

And _now_ he grins, before moving her skirts and throwing her over his shoulder, fire and shouting painting backdrop behind them as they drop over the edge of the wall to the other side of Ardsmuir.

**part ii: sage**

_My Dear Lord John,_

_If you are reading this, we’re quite successfully far away now, and so you musn’t worry about search parties or warrants or any sort of nonsense involving professional integrity. Easier life for you, I'd say, which you've got to admit is terribly considerate of us. "Lord John," shall say your superiors, "wherever did those pesky Frasers go", and you shall say, "well, I've not a clue what you're talking about" because -- and here's the zinger -- you really don't. Are we in Italy? Perhaps the hills of Spain. We certainly won't be together in Paris, but you've no idea what I'm referring to there, which is really too bad, as I'm sure it'll one day go down in history as one of mankind's more classic tales._

__

__

_But anyhow, back to my point. You’re a sharp sort; you realize I am offering you a trust, purely for the sake of decency._

_I must apologize. You are an honourable young man, and I do appreciate the repeated effort you have taken to protect my dubious virtue, even if perhaps it was both times only from my loving and devoted husband of eight years._

_Don’t feel badly; you couldn’t possibly have known._

_It was a necessary deception, and I_ am _sorry for any trouble we may have caused you. You should know that anything and everything we did, we did to protect our family. Perhaps one day, you shall have your own children, and understand._

_If it makes you feel any better, I assure you that you shan’t hear from us ever again, unless it’s on somewhat friendlier terms._

_But I imagine that you mightn’t be too pleased about that, either._

_You are a decent fellow, John. Take care of yourself._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Fraser_

**

They’ve found shelter under a rocky outcropping and Claire lays awake and listens to the sounds of the forest around them. _A fake sorta quiet_ , Bree had called it that morning. That’s why she did not want bedtime; there were so many _noises_ , it was inconceivable that anyone could get a _spot of sleep_.

The origin of that particular expression is unknown to Claire, though Murtagh had insisted with an amused eyebrow in her direction that it sounds decidedly English. He’s only a few steps away from them now, asleep with an inconspicuous arm stretched out towards where Bree and Fergus are curled up into a lumpy sort of ball under Jamie’s heavy coat and their spare blanket. She is worried for his breathing; she has been since they ran.

Claire does not think about the etymology of _helplessness_ , and instead shifts closer to the warm, solid lines of her husband’s body, once more here beside her. She had thought him asleep, foolishly, perhaps -- but he moves instinctively as she does, a deliberation to his own limbs that she hadn’t quite had. They’re covered by their third blanket, so there is _some_ privacy. _Still_ \--

“Jamie,” she murmurs, not entirely a warning.

She still can’t see his face, tucked away as it is somewhere between her neck and wild, unkempt hair. She feels the faux innocence of his smile anyway. 

“Aye.”

 _Fergus sleeps like the deid,_ he’s insisted before, _an’ Bree’s too wee tae ken what her parents’re doin’_. 

“Have some consideration for your poor godfather’s ears.”

He’s lifted his head so that they are face-to-face now, noses nearly touching. Even in the dark half-moonlit nighttime, she can see the glint in his eye. 

“Mmm, he’s fast asleep.”

“ _James_.”

“If ye’ll recall, Sassenach,” still in that heavy-weighted mumble, “ _I’m_ no’ the one who cannae keep quiet tae save her bonny life.” 

She squirms, and pinches him, feeling his quiet laughter rumble against her collarbone and his warm familiarness at all the points their bodies touch and the practiced, searching way his hands find her hips and backside. She carries the weight of their children there, like the dogearring of the page in a beloved book that always makes you cry. Jamie murmurs something indecipherable -- she’s familiar enough with his repertoire to guess it’s some permutation of a prayerful _God, yer arse_ \-- and is moving to pull her closer when he pauses. It’s a soft pause, gentle, almost, with the curious instinct of someone more knowledgeable of her body than she is.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she whispers.

Jamie freezes. The forest’s _fake sorta quiet_ swells.

“Claire,” he says, voice hoarse. 

She nods, suddenly unable to speak. Her hands are cradled against the hollow of his throat, at the center of the cocoon they’ve fought to make for themselves, just one thin, stolen quilt between them and the world. 

When he kisses her, the bruising force of the emotion is held suspended between them, a uniting sort of thing.

**

Claire has come to categorize the experience of being separated from a husband into three acts. Like a play, or a story.

Like the story Jamie tells Bree, some nights before bed.

There is act the first, with the adrenal vibration of nerves and the keen determination of movement. There is act the second, filled with care and planning and canny strategy.

The third act is always an unknown. At times it holds nothing but the heavy crush of fear. Other versions include a resolution, or a knitting together. Sometimes it’s both. Claire has become familiar with it all, at least to some degree. 

But everything feels different now. 

“ _And tell her to wash it in yonder dry well, where no water sprung, nor a drop of rain fell …_ ”

She sits by the fire they’ve risked, holding William against her breast with one arm. In her other hand, she holds the _sgian dubh_ that Jamie had given her not days after they were married. It’s heavy against her palm, but fits well over the grooves of her fingers. Under her nails, the intricate carvings over its hilt trace up and down. 

She’d thought she had lost it, that horrible day on the hill, and he had given it back to her some weeks later, quieted and solemn, already careful with the knowledge that she was uncomfortable harming others. She had expected there to be a _but_ ; that she must be able to protect herself regardless, that she couldn’t expect their life to allow for her instincts. 

But he had said, so earnestly,

_Ye dinna have to harm people with it, Claire. Ye’ve said yerself, ye must cut men open sometimes tae heal ‘em._

She sits with it now in her hand and wonders what will happen if they are set upon by ruffians on the road. _They_ \-- a woman with a baby, a teenager, and an old man with a bad chest.

Willie sighs a little in her arms, and so she goes back to watching him. He’s hardier than his sister was at his age -- a summer baby where Brianna came on the edge of winter, cheerfully defying desperate circumstances with an easy labour and an easier delivery. With rose-hued cheeks like they were made for the sun, and the soft-shaped features of his mother, he’s asleep now, breathing in tiny little puffs that part his lips ever so slightly with each exhale. 

Bree breathes much the same way in sleep, even now, at nearly seven years.

“ _Then she’ll be a true love of mine_.” 

William has always liked her singing. She traces the very edge of his sleeping baby face with one finger, and waits. Sure enough, after a moment has passed, the very corner of his mouth twitches up in a gummy baby smile.

 _Dear God, let them be safe_.

“I can feel ye fashin’ yersel’ from o’er here.”

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” says Claire.

The heavy weight of Fergus against her side shifts and mumbles something in sleep. She had directed Murtagh to rest, and Fergus insisted that he would stay up and take first watch with her, a tired-eyed, sweet-faced sentinel sporting the lanky limbs of teenagehood. He lasted about forty minutes, but she didn’t bother waking him. Something about the feel of him against her side, both trusting and present in slumber, has always been grounding. 

Murtagh grunts now, shifting under his blanket. She looks up to see his sharp eyes shining at her, irritatingly knowing, from the other side of the fire. He’s still coughing, but there is not much they can do for that now. He is mobile, at least, and sleeps through the night.

Usually.

“Och. I’ll bide.”

“Is that right?”

“Ye always were a bonny singer.”

“ _Hmph_ ,” says Claire; she knows he is teasing. “I don’t miss that bloody ridiculous cap, that’s for sure.”

“We’ll find ‘em both again, ye ken.”

“I know.”

“So then.”

“ _So_ then.” 

She takes a deep breath, then lets it loose, scowling at the spot of bark on a tree to their left that is visible in the flickering firelight. The new grey in Murtagh’s beard glitters in off moments. He says,

“I’ll tell ye somethin’, Claire. There are some things in life -- you and I cannae ken. They’re sure things, fer all everythin’ else doesnae make any blasted sense. I sometimes think mebbe ‘tis because they arenae what ye hold.” He makes a complicated face, tangled and _Murtaghlike_ under his greying beard, and emits another cough. “In yer hands, I mean.”

William’s heart beats, in steady, repetitive rhythm. 

“You sound like Jamie,” she says.

“ _Hmph_ ,” says Murtagh. But there’s an assured light in his eye, warm and solid, even as it twinkles. A combined audacity and humility in their way of telling God they’ve _understood_ some things, she thinks. 

She can’t help but feel it’s one of those Fraserish traits that she’s destined to love all her life.

“Ye ken the tale he tells the bairns, before bed,” Murtagh says.

“Yes,” Claire whispers. 

“Aye, weel then. So ye’ll find him. He an’ wee Brianna both.”

In the shadowy light of the fire his gruff face looks less severe than it usually is. 

“I know,” Claire says, and means it.

**part iii: rosemary**

Bree has leapt back from his arms and is already halfway to the other side of the room, chattering at top speeds about everything from _Miss Lindsay’s fancy washin’_ to _I found a mouse under th’floor, Da_ to the unfortunate fact that her breakfast was not satisfactorily honeyed, when he finally has the chance to stand upright and seek his wife out. 

Their apartments are dingy in the way that the corners remain dark and the fire feels like it is all but struggling to bring light to the place, but Claire stands, hair loose and undone and hands dirtied from her day’s work, managing bubbling water and carefully ordered medicine box and the mending by the foot of the bed with a sort of seamless, stubborn grace, and he cannot bring himself to move forward, because something about the way she is placed against the lone light source in the room is making it look as though _she_ is from whence the light is coming, rather than the fire.

 _Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear_ , come the words in a memory to his thoughts, unbidden and utterly useless.

Jamie shakes himself.

She has come to stand before him. The light about her becomes slowly muted until, up close, he remembers the painful sting of their earlier argument. Her curls hang about her face and down her back, longer now than he’s ever seen them. There’s that crease between her brows, the one that at alternate moments breaks his heart and makes him want to shake her until her teeth rattle -- 

But he’s sure she must feel the same about him.

They are _here_ , are they not, their two?

“I, ah, brought ye somethin,” he says, reaching into his coat with cold fingers. The brown paper package is damp and rumpled but somehow still intact; Claire takes it from him carefully. Her hands are red and chapped from helping with the laundry and repeated washing in wintertime -- hands _must_ be washed before illness is tended to, Claire insists, with the regimented iron fist of a tyrannical army general -- but they are delicate when they peel the paper back.

“ _Oh_ \--” Her voice is a soft gasp. “Rowan berries! _Jamie_ , however did you find them here?”

He shrugs, one-shouldered, and says, “There was a woman sellin’ ‘em down the street on th’way back from the print shop. I ken ye said they dinna seem tae grow in these parts, but she was a Highlander, an’ had ‘em in a wee basket. Though, I think she might’ve been sellin’ ‘em to ward off witchcraft.” He clears his throat -- “I -- I ken ye said they’re good fer sore throats an’ such. Winter ailments.”

“Anti-inflammatory properties, yes,” Claire says, but she is looking at him, and not the carefully-wrapped bundle. 

“Claire,” he starts, with all the unspoken meaning of her Gàidhlig name. She cuts him off, rocking upwards on her toes to press a soft kiss to his mouth.

“Forgiven,” she whispers, both question and benediction at once.

“Forgiven,” he whispers back, in just the same way.

“-- gotta _show_ ye somethin’, Da --” Bree has grown tired of regaling a sniffling, ink-stained Fergus with the excitements of her day and appears in a bouncy ball of energy back at his side, clutching what looks like a clean pair of Willie’s nappies in her hands. “Bernard threw a shoe an’ I need your help puttin’ it back on or she won’t be able t’save th’princess. _Oh_ , also Mama says my _teeth’re_ comin’ loose! I can poke at one with my tongue, see? Can y’tell me a story before bed t’night, Da? Uncle Murtagh said he would but he’s jus’ no good at stories like _you_ are. An’ then Willie said --”

“Bri- _anna_ ,” says Claire, all warm, motherly sternness. The sound of it goes straight to a hollow place under Jamie’s ribcage. “Deep breath, baby.”

“Yes Mama,” says Bree, reducing her bouncing with a fumbling, visible effort that makes Jamie bite against the laugh bubbling over his tongue, thick with how much he loves her. Then she says, solemnly, “Da, Willie was askin’ for ye t’day.”

“Och, is that so?” he asks, but Claire’s face has lit with a gentle smile that makes his breath catch, and she says in a quiet voice that Brianna won’t fully hear,

“Oh, that’s right -- I suppose I’ve something for you, as well.”

“Sassenach?” But she has already reached over and lifted a fussing William from his basket, held carefully close to her breast as she passes him over. “Wha --”

Runny-nosed and scowling as Willie is, Jamie does not expect it when a tiny set of fingers scrabbles at his cheek, and the little voice sounds, uncertain as to whether it wishes to be distressed or happy in its declaration:

 _“Dadadadada._ ”

 _Lord_ , he thinks, throat working over itself. 

In front of him, Claire is smiling once more -- a light that beams through the exhaustion they’ve found themselves in, as though proving that it is all worth it just for _this_.

**

 _How many trials must we overcome,_ Claire wants to ask, _like those blasted heroes of old_.

“So I see ye kept the wee fox cub, then,” Geillis is saying, from where she sits leaned back in a wicker basket chair by her own kitchen counter. Her legs are crossed casually at the ankles, resting rather irreverently upon her tiny wooden-legged table. The cottage is shockingly temperate despite the horrid heat outside. Still, Claire swipes uselessly at her sand-logged hair and stares, disbelieving, at the woman in front of her. “Wi’ bairnies an’ everythin’. Claire Fraser, I didna think ye had it in ye.”

“You thought perhaps I’d off him, just to see what happened?”

Uncharitable of her; Geillis doesn’t seem to mind. Her merry eyes flash with something Claire might call friendliness, surprisingly well-suited to the elfin lines of her face.

“I’m weel over my husband-killin’ days,” Geillis says, waving it all away with one elegant, slender hand. “I figured perhaps I’d turn a new leaf over. There’s no need tae rid yerself of a man if ye’ve no’ got one tae begin with. Quite easy tae do that, all alone on a Caribbean island. There arenae any rules fer how I’m tae gain some social capital here, ye ken. Jest me an’ a whole new set of plants -- ye’d be over the moon here, hen -- an’ I dinna really bother the locals o’ermuch. But,” with a deep sigh of resignation, “I suppose ye’re more partial tae at least _one_ of the many clotheided members of the male species.”

“Somewhat so, yes,” Claire says.

Geillis’s eyes flash again. “Ye ken ye ne’er told me when ye’re from.”

The instinct to speak is one Claire thought she’d long tucked away.

“Forty-eight. Twenty years before you.” _She hasn’t forgotten, of course_. “Geillis -- we need to find Fergus and Murtagh. If you know the island --”

“Och, the _forties_. My Mam was a forties gal. She died when I was young, though.” Claire watches, fingers held in tense repose as the other woman gets up and makes her way comfortably through her kitchen, which is herb-filled and heavy with home-made brews and strung-up, dried out game. Outside, where Jamie sits with the children -- carefully wary of taking any step into the resurrected Geillis Duncan’s living room, like an awkward red-headed sentry for the world’s most inconspicuous cottage -- there are chickens. 

Geillis is now rummaging through an errant basket with an easy flippancy that Claire had not realized she would miss. _Bloody hell._

 **“** There’s a British fort on the other side o’ the island,” she’s saying, and Claire inhales -- “But mostly I dinna bother them, an’ they dinna bother me. I think they’re scared of me actually.” She hums, as though this is something she’s not thought much about until just now. “ _Any-_ how, they willnae find ye so long as ye stay on this end o’ the island. But yer lost men might’ve landed in some mess. That, I canna tell ye. Maybe if ye let me read yer tea leaves --” 

“Fuck,” is all Claire can think to say.

“Ye still don’t believe in the supernatural, then,” Geillis says, eyes twinkling, bottle finally unearthed. “More’s the pity. But ‘tis a right bother yer ship got wrecked, either way. Now, remind me how ye take yer whiskey.”

“You’re really just -- here? All alone?”

“Weel, I’ve my chickens,” Geillis says, quite seriously.

“ _Geillis_ ,” Claire says again. “I thought you were dead. And before that, I thought you were ready to let _me_ die --”

“I wasnae ever ready tae do that,” Geillis says sharply, and Claire clamps her mouth back shut. There’s a beat. “They couldnae kill me fer my child. An’ I thought, weel. I dinna much care fer, ye know, burnin’ at the stake. So I -- I had the baby, an’ I left.”

Claire does not say anything. Even this far inland, they can hear the waves crashing against the shore.

“They took her from me, Claire,” she says.

A keen prick -- another thing never-forgotten. 

Claire says, whispered,

“I understand.”

Geillis stares at her a long moment, the oldness of the friendship renewing into something different, more known. Her eyes are too-large, still, and unnerve Claire even now. But she says,

“All things seem tae happen fer a reason, I’ve found. That’s how it is in this world we’re in. So aye, Claire, I’ll help ye.” Her voice changes, becoming lighter -- “An’ no strings attached, either, which ye’ll thank me for later. Sometimes when I bargain wi’ those soldier types, I draw up contracts. Ye ken, the usual fair -- if they break their word I’ll steal their first born, or they’ll forfeit their name, an’ such like. Terribly soft-heided laddies, hen, fer all they believe me.”

A beat passes, wherein Claire watches a genuine grin bloom across Geillis’s face. 

“Oh, Geillis,” she says. “I’ve bloody well _missed_ you.”

“Actually,” Geillis says, “if ye wish tae be technical about it, my name’s Gillian.”

Together, they begin to laugh.

**

_Dearest Sister,_

_First and foremost I must beg your Forgiveness for the unknowing Silence you have assuredly endured these last months, for all that we have been Untethered from a single Home and Fearing for our Livelihood. Were I in your Position, I would likely be in both Anxiety and Fury -- and can certainly imagine your own Formidable Wrath, borne of the Deep Care you hold for others -- and must hence offer my Deepest Apologies and Beg Forgiveness._

_Jenny, I do miss you so._

_More than words can describe, you and Ian and Your Children reside in the depths of my heart with both a Depth and a Magnitude encompassed purely and without exception only by that of my own Children and Dearest Wife, for whom I breathe each of my breaths with Single-Minded Devotion, as they are my Soul’s keepsake and -- I in humility take it upon myself to be Assured of -- God-given Purpose in life._

_We have landed safely in The Colonies. Pray that I shall not have to negotiate the Schemes of our Dear Aunt prior to finding a place for us to call our Own. You know How She Is._

_More than anything, pray that we might find a New Place to call our home. I Ache for all that I have left behind, but -- and I do not say this with confidence, but rather Forfeit my life to those Forces Outside of our Control that we must Trust -- I pray more than anything that we might find a New Home, one that is deserving of the Love we all bear for one another._

_Claire believes we shall. I must find within myself the Courage to commit wholly to her Wisdom._

_Tell Ian he must not let our Home fall to the ground else I shall Haunt him in the Next Life. Also, I ask that you give Wee Jamie and Margaret and the Younger Ian (of course, and notwithstanding the Certainty that you must be Blessed with more children at this time -- though I cannot say in Truth that I am_ all _pleased regarding this Reality at all times, sister) a Kiss from their Uncle and the reminder to Behave._

_Only on Select Occasions, though. They must be prepared to Torment you on my Behalf, as I am sadly and painfully no longer There to do so Myself._

_I am, always,_

_Your loving and devoted Brother,_

_James_

_P.S. I have attached to this Letter a missive from Claire regarding the various Medicinal Uses of Yarrow Root for that Interminable Thing she calls the Common Cold, and also a portrait of Bree’s. I believe her talents shall one day Surmount even those of our Mother! Much love Etc., J_

**part iv: thyme**

Claire is crying.

“I am not crying,” Claire says. “I’m fine.”

He’s just finished detailing his plans for a house, bedrooms and kitchen and garden plot and all. They shall keep horses; cows have not been domesticated in this part of the world quite yet, Claire remembers. She has been watching his arms gesture straightforwardly, gracefully pointing out the various nooks and crannies of woodland meant to house their new home with the stiff fingers of his bad hand. His bright, intelligent eyes are alight with promise.

“Ye are,” Jamie tells her, not quite bewildered, hand hanging somewhat uselessly mid-point. 

“I’m _not_ ,” she says.

They are standing on a ridge, overlooking a mountain range so beautiful it takes Claire’s breath away. It’s surrounded by trees whose fingers are stuck in the clouds and foliage that makes her little botanist’s heart sing. The air is crisp; clear. Scottish enough for the ache of homesickness to recede to the background, if the slow-growing relief in her husband’s brow is any indication. Claire can feel the sun above, leaking through the temperate canopy above and hitting her face, and the dirt below, even through the soles of her shoes. There’s a thrum -- there’s a _something_.

Like something about it all is meant to be here.

She pushes this feeling aside. The children have been left by the wagon and horses, to acquaint themselves with the grass and sky under Murtagh’s watchful eye. William had been sucking diligently on the hem of Brianna’s skirt; Bree had been doing an admirable job poking Fergus in the ticklish spot behind his knee without him catching her at it. They’ve been on the road for ages, it feels, and between the awful smells of Wilmington and the belligerent sniffles William has been suffering from for the past four days, she supposes there is a long-honed instinct deep in Jamie’s discerning soul that anticipates her ups and downs. 

Still; Claire is sure she must look quite overwrought. Quick-coming concern, usually reserved for the few seconds immediately after one or more child shrieks in the distance, floods the sharp lines of his face. 

“Christ, lass,” he says. “Are ye hurt?”

“N-no,” hiccups Claire. 

“Are ye ... unhappy?” 

“I’m _overjoyed_ ,” cries Claire. 

He runs his hands over the sharp angles of her bent elbows, up the skinny sleeves of her arms. His eyes do not blink, but are narrowed, that way he has when he’s silently trying to navigate his way through some especially sticky situation.

“Was it somethin’ I said?” he asks, finally.

Claire gestures helplessly and makes a faint sobbing noise.

“The shed,” she manages.

Jamie stares at her. 

Somewhere in the depths of the North Carolinian forest around them, a bird twitters. 

“Claire Fraser,” says her husband. “D’ye mean to tell me. That ye’ve lied tae British officers. Broken ten men out’ve _another_ prison. Been put out of yer home, lost yer _family_ \-- lived in poverty, managed my Aunt Jocasta -- no small feat, I’ll tel ye -- went heid t’heid wi’ that awful governor, broke bread wi’ the Mohawk, no’ t’mention spent an entire sea voyage tendin’ tae a useless husband and two wailin’ bairns, ran intae a mad friend ye’d thought was _deid_ secretly livin’ as a witch on some Caribbean island --”

“Geillis is raising _chickens_ ,” Claire says wistfully, hiccuping once more --

“And it’s only when I tell ye I’ve plans t’build ye a wee wooden _shack_ in the middle of the woods so ye can cut people open, that ye get weepy?”

He’s trying to hide his laughter, she can tell -- broad shoulders and ginger curls are trembling with the effort -- but he, too, has collected an inconvenient bit of moisture along the bottom rims of his lashes. He _did_ once tell her he could never watch her cry without blubbering like a fool himself, she remembers. And there they are.

Glittering, overbright, making her feel all the more prone to spill her own.

 _His_ stay sensibly put, of course.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Claire says. “ _Don’t_ \-- oh, I _know_. Shut _up_.”

Jamie starts laughing openly, watery mirth intermingling with a cloggy tearfulness of his own. He wraps himself around her, the sort of bear hug they’ve not had time to indulge in of late. He smells like dirt, Claire thinks, and the sweat of travel. 

“Hush, _mo chridhe_ ,” he says. “Hush, ye silly woman. I’ll build ye twelve sheds, but ye must stop yer weepin’, or I shall surely start too.”

Claire feels the sharpest points of her body blur and mold against his. Around them, the deep greens of the forest seem magnified, larger than life. Not a soul in sight for days to each side but for Wilmington, Murtagh said, and she’d seen the crease appear between Fergus’s sweet brows. But when she’d turned to Jamie, he had a look about him, like he _knew_.

She’s not sure what he knows; he just does.

In the split second before Bree’s chirrupy voice breaks through the spell of the trees and announces to the forest that, _Jesus_ Roos’ _velt,_ they’ve _lost Willie_ , where she is simply suspended amidst the greenery in his arms, Claire thinks a fanciful thought that will not cross her mind again for years to come:

That if faeries _were_ real, they’d choose this place as their home.

**Author's Note:**

>  **notes (sorry, there are a lot):**  
>  \- this is a blanket reminder that i really have not read the books, nor could i truly palate watching past the first two episodes of s3. i apologize if that upsets anyone, but i feel the need to reiterate that while this series borrows some elements of the later outlander canon, its purpose is not to closely reflect it, or any themes or specific character relationships therein. this is ... a story that i believe is made for these characters, and wanted to write for myself. thank you for understanding  
> \- claire's letter to lord john references casablanca, which was made in 1942  
> \- the song claire is singing in the third scene of part two is, you might have noticed, scarborough fair. it originally dates back to as early as the 1600s and is believed to be rooted an old Scottish ballad titled "the Elfin Knight", which i hilariously enough only /just/ learned, but having learned it think is very apt. the version claire sings is me meshing the earlier, "original" lyrics from Wikipedia with the more modern Simon and Garfunkel version, which i do realize came after claire's time  
> \- that being said, for those of you new here, the version of the song that inspired this series is this beautiful cover: https://open.spotify.com/track/6nIM8MuphcWZMPrIvRDTGD?si=rvTHe5lUTRalKnByisY7yw  
> \- "like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear" is from shakespeare's romeo and juliet and was inspired by this beautiful post on tumblr: https://philtstone.tumblr.com/post/631418439882391552  
> \- Rowan is native to the Highlands and can indeed be used for anti-inflammatory purposes but was, according to a quick google search that unwittingly led me to the very neat herbalist blog of a woman who is apparently a real life member of clan fraser (here's the link: https://thelocustsandhoney.com/2017/09/25/highland-herbal-scotlands-healing-plants/), also used to ward off bad spirits and witches  
> \- geillis deserves to live on that island in the caribbean with her chickens and not be a horrible villain dont @ me  
> \- jamie's somewhat ridiculous (but very sincere!) letter was inspired by the iconic blog @georgiansuggestion on tumblr dot com. i have spent. hours. reading through those posts and laughing myself to tears. i in no way shape or form am pretending that my version is in any conceivable way "historically accurate"
> 
> thank you again for reading! i hope you enjoyed <3


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